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HEDGEROWS
An Allegory
ʻIt took a very long time . . . for our ancestors to learn how important it was to dig the earth and sow the seed, but at last agriculture commenced in real earnest, and thus it was we came to possess our hedgerows, which were found necessary for dividing the land and separating the fields. To such an extent has this been carried out, that the green meadows of England and her hedgerows have become quite a feature of the landscape; they are now to be numbered among the glories of our country, and are perhaps unsurpassed in any other land.ʼ
– The Hedge I Know (pub. J.M. Dent; 1941) –
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IT IS A matter of
perspective. There are two: ours and God’s. The former is easy
to get it is built in, we are born with it. It
is also hard to alter. It is even harder to obtain the latter God’s view of
things. Most people cannot see things
from God’s perspective, for it is a view gained by
experience bathed in the light of a trusting faith. It is a
point of view not merely an opinion which has
guided and sustained the Lord’s people through all of the harrowing and
frightening experiences of all the centuries, through all their fears and
uncertainties. Through all those times when the close-up
view offered no encouragement.
England from the Air
One of the pleasures which modern travel affords is the scene through the window of a jetliner. Vast landscapes rolling off into the distance appear different and smaller. Miles are consumed in minutes. Houses and streets, industrial plants and gigantic stadia sprawl like diminutive boxes littered about the landscape, connected by thin ribbons of dark asphalt along which run toy cars and buses.
Flying over English fields you notice the distinctive quilt pattern dark and light square patches, like a giant chess board. This enduring and varied aspect owes such an arrangement to its history. Divided and sub-divided by landowners, stepped-off and separated in continual land management the building of castles and their attendant villages, scattered farms, the enclosure of fields for sheep the country is a rich tapestry on which one can read agricultural and social trends of its long existence. It is estimated that at least eighty percent of the land has been cultivated. The dry stone walls which meander over the landscape are a testimony to the skill of the builders and their perseverance.
Of even greater relevance to the theme of this article is that ancient biological divider the hedgerow. Knotted and gnarled, the hedgerow does double-duty. Efficient as it is in separating one field from its neighbour, its rustic usefulness is enhanced by the shelter it affords. For within its branches reside many forms of flora and fauna.
But the hedges have long been under threat. Large farm machinery cannot negotiate around them, and many miles of hedgerows have been grubbed up, destroying in the process the habitat of small animals and birds. Some of the hedges are being replanted in an effort to reverse the damage.
The hedge serves also as a breaker to the wind: frequently one sees a short running hedge jutting out into an open field, like a sentinel guarding against the onrushing winter gusts. It must be made strong to survive. It must be pruned. To accomplish this, its branches are cut back and partly broken, bending them toward their neighbours. The effect is to encourage the whole to weave itself together in an interlocking structure sturdy enough to withstand the fiercest weather.
Early Church Hedgerows
Planted in the dry soil of a formal Judaism, the heart of the true believer found little nourishment for the spirit. It was not until the coming of Jesus the Messiah, with His interpretation of the Jewish rituals and the prophetic utterances of the time-honoured writings that the true Israelites could begin to grow.
Attracted by the loving simplicity and purity of these early congregations, Jewish and Gentile converts came. Never large in number, the movement was nonetheless of harvest proportions. Coming under its influence were the little ones according to this world those discouraged by their own sinfulness, loathing the self and looking for salvation. The message of Christ crucified, which they found proclaimed in these little companies, offered sublime shelter.
Under this cover the flowers of faith and Christian character blossomed. Isolated by belief and practice from the larger Jewish and pagan societies around them, the early Christian Church presented a scattered, meandering spectacle to the casual observer. Unattractive and unpolished, these were not the best that the world had to offer (1 Cor. 1: 26-29; James 2: 5).
This was the view from the ground. But higher up, from Heaven’s perspective, here was the promise of the future: a robust, intertwined, living organism, united in the one faith a bulwark against unbelief and the background of a disappearing Jewish polity.
Hedges Cut Down
Before long the great Apostasy arrived on the scene. That event, which eventually was to plunge civilization into a long darkness, turned its attention to the sturdy bands of converts which ran across the landscape of the times, like so many hedgerows. The large ecclesiastical system that was then developing needed a wide theological space in which to manoeuvre, and the primitive churches were in the way. So they were uprooted, chopped down.
But wherever the people of the land were deprived of the influence of these saints the cultural ground dried and hardened, bringing the blight of sectarianism and superstition.
Replantings
In due course, the Reformation liberated the saints from an oppressive religious system, sending down shoots of faith which developed into the movements of the 16th and 17th centuries, and a return to a simpler faith and practice.
But before long, formalism harried non-conformists in an attempt to clear the field for all but the largest and wealthiest church apparatus. The favoured Church of England, allied with the Crown and well-blessed, though only partly reformed, became itself a persecutor of the dissenting believers.
A welter of evangelical movements, spawning closely-knit groups, followed throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, culminating in the various groups of Dispensationalists and Bible Students movements, which flourished during the 19th century and into the 20th. Small knots of Christians held their meetings in private houses, like their early Church counterparts. And like their counterparts they sought simplicity of religion, eschewing sophisticated formality. Together, they formed spiritual hedgerows, offering sustenance and life to all who came under their shelter.
This harvest movement was not unlike that of the early Church. Not from the great and beautiful temples of Christendom, with their magnificent vaulted ceilings not from such places did the harvest message go forth, but from individual ecclesias, new communities of faith one here, one there. This movement, largely ignored by the contemporary historians, encouraged a return to Bible study and the practices of the primitive Church.
These earnest students were not the first of their kind they followed in a long line of small, persecuted faith communities, linked across the spiritual landscape in a network which has grown together like so many hedgerows.
Prunings
And so it is now. Each ecclesia is a hedgerow, a shelter against life’s inclement events. Each provides within its circle a haven for those who seek respite from an often cold and unbelieving world.
This is the function of the ecclesia. As it grows, it affords reassuring cover to each who comes into it, knit together by the difficult experiences each encounters. Like the branches of the hedgerow, hearts are often hurt to the point of breaking but not quite.
In the natural world, the workers who maintain the English hedgerows know how to prune and shape them. They have an eye to strengthening and enriching the hedge, not to killing it. So it is with the Master Pruner. Pruning brings pain. We see the process ‘down hereʼ, and sometimes it feels that God is cutting our hearts out. But it is expertly done. He bends the branches to just short of breaking and gives it a bias toward its neighbour so that the whole grows together in a community of faith. Our shared experiences enlarge our sympathies with one another. They cause us to grow together so that as a unit we are stronger (Psalm 133).
A healthy church is like a vigorous hedgerow. It can withstand almost anything that comes against it. You see, dear Christian, individually we may not be able to bear very much, but together we can bear a lot, by supporting one another, by strengthening one another, by growing and becoming knit together.
From without and within, the Christian church as a whole is under threat from a secular and decaying culture. But we should not be discouraged by the prospect of hard experiences to come. God blesses His hedgerow churches. He works His will through each member, as we remain faithful to Him. Each of us fills a gap, helping to bind the whole together, interlocked.
The View from Above
In the short-range view, the world is an ugly place. But the Heavenly Father sees something else. He sees a world for which He sent His Son to die. He sees things that are not yet, but which are to be. He has the perspective of eternity. Jesus, too, sees a thing of beauty so much so that He is to take it as His own and fashion it into a paradise a perfected earth for a redeemed race.
The ‘down here’ view is often all we can see. But if we are to live hopefully and rejoicingly and vibrantly, we need to match our perspective to God’s. In due time, when this world has run its course, a better one will arise. Intersecting communities of faith will quilt the fields of a rejuvenated world, and present a glorious and satisfying aspect to Heaven. The long centuries of persecution and infidel blast will have ended. Then, flourishing, these sturdy hedgerows will stand forever, ʻthe planting of the LORD, that he may be glorifiedʼ (Isa. 61: 3).
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Notes
External sites of interest on Hedgerows (these have no connection to UK Bible Students)
URLs retrieved 27 June 2013
Campaign to Protect Rural England
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Article copyright July 2013 ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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